


things you've given me

by mazzawitz



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Holiday, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-09 16:30:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8899498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazzawitz/pseuds/mazzawitz
Summary: Secret Santa is all fun and games—until it isn't.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> I'm baaaaaack, and I come bearing a Christmas treat.
> 
> My office did Secret Santa on Friday, and this is naturally where my trash brain went.
> 
> This will in two parts: one from Beck's POV and one from Beth's. Hope to see some other good holiday stuff on here in the coming days :) (nudge nudge.)

It was Watney who’d suggested doing a Secret Santa gift exchange, because of course it was. 

They’d been a crew for about eight months, and they had a year and a half until launch. The six of them had settled into a great camaraderie so far, but “bonding” activities like this were encouraged by NASA every now and then, especially if said activities were a nice distraction from the mission itself. 

And so the Ares 3 crew sat around a break room table at the Johnson Space Center, scribbling their last names onto slips of paper which were then tossed into the NASA baseball cap that Chris Beck had been wearing just moments before. 

Commander Lewis went first, selecting a random name from the hat and passing it around for the others to do the same. When it was Beck’s turn, he unfolded the little slip of paper and immediately felt his stomach leap into his throat. 

Spelled neatly in all caps across the paper was _JOHANSSEN_.

The only thought that went through his brain was _shit_. 

\--- 

An hour or so later, Beck had relaxed. He wouldn’t quite say that he panicked when he saw Beth’s name, but he felt immediate pressure from the opportunity he’d just yanked out of a hat. 

You don’t just half-ass a Christmas present for the girl you’re crazy about. That was not an option. 

(Not that he expected anything out of it, of course—he wasn’t under a misguided impression that an expertly selected Secret Santa present would result in Beth turning around and declaring her mutual affection for him. But he knew he had an opportunity here to show her that he cared, that he _really_ cared, and he had no intention of wasting it.) 

So what could he get her? There was the gag gift option, of course—something that would reference an inside joke or silly memory from the time they’d known each other. He wasn’t convinced that was the way to go, though. He wanted to get her something that she’d actually enjoy and want to keep around, not something that’d get a laugh in the moment and then serve no actual purpose. 

The only slight inconvenience was the $25 price limit they’d all agreed to for the sake of fairness. There was no limit to how much he’d be willing to spend on her if it meant finding the perfect gift, but he knew he’d have to keep it reasonable. 

So he’d have to think. He knew her pretty well at this point, probably the best out of the whole crew. Something about being the two youngest in the crew and being so fully consumed in their work that they didn’t have huge social lives or networks of friends had bonded them quickly, and for that, he was grateful. 

But when he switched from simply enjoying her company to feeling genuine and unwavering affection for her, he knew he was walking on eggshells. It never got in the way of his work or their friendship, but the long days of keeping his feelings stowed as far back as possible in his mind were exhausting. And soon, he’d be on a cramped spaceship with her for more than a year. 

He knew that for the foreseeable future, finding a gift that she’d love was the closest he’d get to telling her how he felt. So that’s what he’d do. 

For about a week, he deliberated the situation just about any time he wasn't working: on his drives to and from work, on the treadmill, as he waited for the microwave to heat up his food. He tried to remember every detail from their recent conversations—had she mentioned wanting something for her apartment? A book she wanted to read? Anything that would show that he listened and he cared? 

He kept coming up short.

One night, with about five days left until the date of the gift exchange, he stopped into a new sandwich place to pick up something for dinner. On his way out, he noticed a store a few doors down the strip mall. He knew it was more or less and gaming and comics store, but he’d never been inside. Something told him that now was the time.

His initial lap around the store wasn’t too lucrative, but he stopped short when he noticed a set of figures in a glass display case toward the back. 

He could hardly believe it. 

Chris Beck could point to the first time he was consciously aware that his feelings for Beth had transformed from a platonic crewmate friendship to a big fucking crush. It was early one morning, toward the beginning of training, when he’d arrived ahead of schedule to work. When he stopped into a break room for some coffee, Beth was already there, hunched over her laptop playing an undeniably nerdy looking game. He refilled her coffee cup for her, and when he asked what she was playing, she invited him to sit down. Still newly captivated and intrigued by this stunning but hard-to-read crewmate of his, he’d accepted. She spent the next hour teaching him how to play the game, and by the time the work day started, he was grinning alongside her, shooting fire at dragons and battling with wizards while she cheered him on. 

He walked out of that break room as a total goner, and in the months that followed, she only entranced him more and more every day. 

Now, standing in a nerdy store in suburban Houston, he was looking at four six-inch figures of the game’s core characters: the dragon, the wizard, the fairy, and the troll. 

He whipped his head around to the employee behind the desk. “How much for these?” he asked, pointing at the quartet. 

The man looked up and squinted. “40 bucks.” 

“I’ll take ‘em.” 

It was $15 more than he was supposed to spend, but it wasn’t glaringly obvious. He could easily pretend he didn’t go over the limit. 

He was pretty sure it was the best damn 15 bucks he ever spent. 

\--- 

They had elected to exchange gifts during lunch, which meant for the first half of the day, Beck’s stomach was in knots. Would she like it? Did she actually care about the game and those characters as much as he’d assumed she did? Would she think it was weird? 

He was relieved to exchange those thoughts in favor of his work all morning, but when Beth smiled innocuously at him as he sat down at the table with his food, they all came rushing back. _God, this can’t be over soon enough_ , he thought.

Six gifts sat in the middle of the table, all labeled for their intended recipients. Since the whole thing was Watney’s idea, Lewis decided that he’d unwrap his gift first, then he’d deliver the gift he brought to the person whose name he’d drawn, and so on. 

Mark tore open the gift and yelped when he saw a Cubs t-shirt with his last name printed across the back. It was from Vogel, who wore a proud grin. 

Once Lewis had received a set of holiday bitters from Watney and Beck had received a beautiful book of historic baseball photos from Lewis, it was his turn to slide the rectangular package he’d wrapped with red paper across the table to Beth. 

(He tried not to think anything of the way her face lit up when she saw her gift was coming from him.) 

He practically held his breath as she carefully unwrapped the present. When she slid out the plastic packaging containing the four figures, she gasped and looked up at Beck in disbelief. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” she exclaimed as she pulled the characters out of the plastic. She looked up at Beck again with a grin that he was sure he’d never forget. “You _remembered_ this?!” 

He chuckled, his arms folded on the table and a big smile across his face. “Of course. That game was the shit.” 

“Where did you even find them?” she asked, still handling the figures in awe and amusement. “I didn’t even know they made these.” 

Before he could answer, Watney interrupted. “Better question: What even are these? Apparently you two are on a level of nerd that the rest of us haven’t reached yet.” 

Beth laughed and explained the game to the others, then reached for a bagged gift that she pushed toward Martinez. 

“There’s...a card in there too,” Beck stammered before her attention turned to the next gift. “Just so you don’t mix it up with the wrapping paper.” 

Beth nodded in recognition and then fished it out of the leftover paper. 

The sounds of Martinez opening his gift were only background noise as Beck watched her open and read the card. He felt relief wash over him as she smiled to himself, then looked away just in time to avoid being caught staring when she looked up to him.

> > _Merry Christmas, Beth! You’re one of my top three favorite things about coming to work every day, the others being unlimited coffee and the whole training to go to Mars thing. Hope you have a great holiday with your family. – Chris_

\--- 

After wrapping paper was jammed into recycle bins and gifts were brought back to lockers, the crew dispersed to their afternoon assignments. 

As Beck made his way down a corridor to the lab he’d been working in, he heard a _Hey!_ in a familiar voice and felt a hand on his arm. 

He turned around in surprise, and there was Beth, in the medical wing, nowhere near where she would be spending the afternoon. She’d gone out of her way to find him. 

“That was the best gift ever,” she said, her eyes sparkling, and before he knew it, her arms were wrapped around him in a hug that he quickly reciprocated. 

“Thank you,” she said against his shoulder, and then she was standing in front of him again. “So, you never told me, where on Earth did you find those?” 

He laughed, and even though the scent of her hair lingered on his nose, he got his thoughts together enough to respond. He told her everything as they continued down the hall: the quest for a sandwich, the stumbled-upon gaming store, the figures in a display box that he knew had to be hers. 

When he finished, she was biting her lip to contain her smile. “Well,” she said, stopping at the stairwell that would take her back to her sysops workspace. “Those will be displayed proudly somewhere in my room. I don’t have much...stuff, decorations or anything like that. But they’ll be a good start.” 

Beck smiled at her for probably a second too long, but she didn’t look like she minded one bit. “Good.”


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because precious bbs giving each other presents makes me happy. 
> 
> I had every intention of getting this up before Christmas, but New Year's Eve will have to do! Hope you enjoy.

“How would everyone feel about reviving Secret Santa?”  
  
Four faces with eyebrows raised stared back at Commander Lewis.  
  
“I know it was originally Mark’s idea, so it feels strange to do it without him, but maybe it’d be a nice reminder that we’ll have him back soon,” she continued. “And especially since none of us planned on being up here for another Christmas.”  
  
_That_ was certainly true. They were months into their voyage back to Mars to pick up their abandoned crewmate, and the idea of spending another Christmas in space—without their children—was especially tough for Martinez and Vogel.  
  
“Why not?” Martinez shrugged. “Wouldn’t be your usual Secret Santa, though.”  
  
“I think that’s why it could be fun,” Lewis said with a smile. “It’d force us to get creative. Work different parts of our brains. Be a little silly.” She paused for a moment. “I think it’d be good for all of us.”  
  
“But what will we do for gifts?” asked Vogel, always thinking rationally.  
  
Lewis shrugged. “Make something, find something, do something for someone, I don't know. Up to you."  
  
Chris caught Beth’s eye across the table and raised his eyebrows. He was always doing that, Beth noticed—looking to her after someone voiced an idea, cracked a joke, stated a plan. Little check-ins, like he just wanted to share moments and experience things with her. She was consistently surprised by how much comfort and reassurance it brought her.  
  
Beth shrugged. “Sure. Keeps things interesting.”  
  
Chris and Vogel both nodded, and Beth caught what might’ve been the hint of a twinkle crossing the commander’s eyes.  
  
“Good,” she said. “Let’s draw names.”  
  
They went through the familiar motions of their last gift exchange—names on slips of paper, slips of paper in a bowl—until they each held a crewmate’s name in front of them.  
  
On the count of three, they looked at their random selections.  
  
Beth felt a crooked grin creep across her face.  
  
_BECK._  
  
\---  
  
Drawing Chris as her Secret Santa should’ve been a fun, light distraction from her usual routine, but Beth quickly felt more stressed out than she’d expected. He’d selected the most perfect gift for her those three Christmases ago ( _three years of Chris in her life? Holy shit_ ) and she wanted to reciprocate the care and thoughtfulness he’d shown her.  
  
(And he’d only been her friendly crewmate then. Not her…boyfriend? The word felt strange—didn’t feel like _enough_ —but she supposed that for all intents and purposes, that’s what he was.)  
  
She now knew that he’d already comes to terms with his feelings for her at the time of that gift exchange, which meant he’d been acting with love, even before _they_ were anything. But now they were something. Something really fucking special, Beth thought, and she felt herself bursting with the need to show him exactly how special he was to her.  
  
The roadblock, of course, was being in a spaceship.  
  
Astronauts were selected for their resourcefulness and ingenuity, two traits Beth knew she had. But figuring out how to apply those capabilities to creating a fucking _Christmas_ present was going to be the death of her.  
  
She could write him a letter. He was a sentimental guy, and even though she often teased him or called him cheesy, she kind of loved it. That felt like a cop-out, though.  
  
She could gift him some sort of gesture, like a week’s worth of him being the sole selector of the movies they’d watch together before bed. It’d make him laugh, and she could even enjoy the “gift” with him.  
  
Still. Not enough.  
  
She let out a groan, head in her hands atop a table in Beck’s lab. He wasn’t even there with her, but she still liked the open space and general quiet it provided. Especially now that she didn’t have to dig for reasons to justify her presence there. Thanks to Lewis, everybody knew. It was a relief, really.  
  
It was tempting to ask one of the others what they planned on gifting their selected person, but she knew that realistically, the group was too small to risk ruining the surprise. She could be asking the person who drew her name, for all she knew.  
  
She sighed, looking back at the all-systems check she was running on her laptop, and found herself wishing she could somehow apply her technical skills to a Christmas gift. The thought alone made her huff under her breath: years upon years of training and multiple degrees, all to be stuck on a spaceship, stressing over a holiday present.  
  
Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea, though.  
  
Recently, Chris had been blow away after hearing her talk about coding and creating her own games like it was the simplest task in the world. _You can just like…take what you know about building systems and stuff and use it to make a video game?_ he’d asked incredulously.  
  
_Yeah_ , she’d answered with a scowl. _We can have fun too, you know._  
  
A whole, fully functional computer game, made just for him. She could do that. It wouldn’t be difficult, just tedious, and she’d have to dedicate a good amount of time to it after her usual duties.  
  
But for him? Worth it. Worth every second.  
  
\---  
  
For the second time that week, Chris found Beth hunched over her laptop in his lab, long after he’d abandoned it for the day.  
  
“You coming to bed soon?” he asked just as she felt his hands on her shoulders, beginning to massage them gently.  
  
She let her head fall back against his chest, sighing as she felt the pressure—pressure she hadn’t even realized was there—leave her shoulders.  
  
“Yeah. Soon,” she said, eyeing her screen to ensure nothing on the display gave her away. It was covered in lines of code for the game, but he’d never know, just like she never had any idea what she was looking at when he showed her something through one of his microscopes.  
  
He frowned, not recognizing any of her usual programs on the screen. “What are you working on this late?”  
  
“Just…” she mumbled, trying to think of something plausible. “Some software tricks I’ve been wanting to try out for a long time. To break up all the usual work stuff.”  
  
“Mmm.” The answer satisfied him enough; everyone had to distract themselves from the monotony of their routines every now and then. “Want me to stay up with you?”  
  
She smiled, because of course he’d offer that. An extra surge of affection for him shot through her. “No, go to bed. Thanks, though.”  
  
“Well, don’t stay up too late,” he said, placing a kiss atop her head and giving her shoulders one final squeeze.  
  
She craned her neck around so she could actually see his face. “I won’t.” Her hand reached up to squeeze his before he smiled and disappeared through the door.  
  
Beth turned back to her screen, eyes darting across the lines of code to find the command she wanted to fix. A few more adjustments and she’d be done. All that would leave her to do is craft a few graphics—which, if you asked her, would be the highlight of the whole thing—and plug them in.  
  
She ran tests a few more times, noting and fixing errors until exhaustion began to make every digit look the same.  
  
She considered her situation: She was tired, and one Christopher Beck was waiting for her in a warm bed. Christmas Eve (and therefore their gift exchange) was tomorrow, and she had an hour of free time in the morning.  
  
She closed her laptop. It could wait until then.  
  
\---  
  
Celebrating holidays on the _Hermes_ was always strange.  
  
Birthdays were one thing: A banner went up, everyone sang, your ship-keeping duties for the day were lifted. But big holidays? On Halloween, they’d sat around a table and tallied up who could correctly name the most jelly bean flavors by taste. (Martinez.) Last Christmas, they were under the impression that Mark was dead, and their grief was still raw. Nobody felt like celebrating. Aside from emails and well-wishes from their families and friends back home, they hardly even acknowledged it.  
  
Now, though, they’d hung the makeshift garland and tiny stockings NASA had sent with them. They planned their meal packs for the week so that they’d have all their favorites for a Christmas Eve dinner, and they took turns playing their favorite holiday music in the rec.  
  
A more cynical Beth of the past might’ve thought that this was all unnecessary, and that there wasn’t much to gain from attempting to celebrate a holiday in space. But the last year had made her more appreciative of small comforts, and Christmas decorations, she realized, were one of those things.  
  
After clearing away their dishes, all five gifts (“wrapped” in black plastic bags and labeled for their recipients) were placed in the middle of the table.  
  
They came to the consensus that since the exchange had been the commander’s idea this time, she should go first.  
  
Her face lit up as she delicately pulled what looked like a snowman made of cotton balls from the bag, complete with black jelly beans for eyes and a sign around its neck that read _Since you miss that Minnesota snow!_  
  
“Rick, was this you?” she asked, and the pilot nodded proudly.  
  
“Stole all those cotton balls from medical, thanks bud,” he said as he slapped a hand on Beck’s shoulder.  
  
Martinez went next, tearing open his bag like a little kid. Inside was a small glass vile containing a power-like substance.  
  
“OK, who gave me anthrax?” he said, and everyone snickered.  
  
“It is a drink mix concoction that I created,” smiled Vogel. “I don’t know if any of my chemist tricks worked, but I think it should taste something like the Horchata you say you miss if you mix it with a glass of water.  
  
Martinez’s eyes widened, clearly affected. “Are you serious?”  
  
“Yes,” Vogel responded with another smile. “I do not know the taste to reference it, but my wife emailed me the recipe and I tried to recreate it with things we have up here. Cinnamon, vanilla, stuff like that.”  
  
Beth smiled. Martinez looked a little misty-eyed as he thanked the German and wrapped him up in a bear hug.  
  
Next, Vogel pulled a rectangle of fabric from his bag. He unfolded it to reveal it had been decorated like a German flag with his initials in the middle.  
  
“For your lab bench,” Beck said as Vogel simultaneously exclaimed something in his native tongue.  
  
Beth felt her stomach prickle with nerves (excitement?) as Vogel asked Chris about the details of the flag’s creation, knowing that it was now his turn to open his gift. The few minutes she had to wait before Chris reached for his bag felt like hours.  
  
Finally, he picked up the bag, scrunching his brow when he noticed how light it was. He reached inside and pulled out a plan slip of paper inscribed with some sort of computer lingo.  
  
He picked up the paper, squinting at it, and raised an eyebrow.  
  
Beth, watching with an amused smile on her face, bit her lip. “It’s a file path,” she said, suddenly feeling shy as he met her eyes, realizing that his gift was from her. “On your laptop.”  
  
“Okay…” he said, “Should I—“  
  
“It’s right here.” She said with another smile. It was normal for her to carry her laptop with her everywhere on the ship, so nobody thought of it when she set it on the floor next to her seat before dinner. They just hadn’t known that it was actually _his_.  
  
Chris raised his eyebrows again as he accepted the computer from her. As he opened it, Beth moved to kneel next to his chair, and the others, now wildly curious, gathered around.  
  
“Type it there,” she said, pointing to his screen. “And open that.”  
  
He did as he was told, all the while sneaking glances to her at his side, wondering with a creeping sense of pride what she possibly could have in store for him.  
  
The program finally loaded, bringing up a black background with “DR. BECK’S SPACE ADVENTURE” flashing across it.  
  
His mouth hanging open now, he turned back to Beth. “What is this?”  
  
“It’s a game,” she said, pointing to the PLAY button onscreen. “Your space adventure.”  
  
Still processing, he clicked PLAY. The text vanished, replaced by a small Minecraft-like figure of an EVA suit with Beck’s face photoshopped onto the helmet.  
  
“That’s you,” said Beth, pointing. “And that,” she continued, as another graphic crawled across the screen, “is Santa.”  
  
Chris’s eyes widened yet again.  
  
Beth bit her lip to contain her rueful smile when she saw his face. “You have to get yourself back to the _Hermes_ through this little maze without Deep Space Santa catching you in order to win.” She tapped her fingers on the arrow keys to demonstrate how to move the tiny Dr. Beck.  
  
By now, she’d practically tuned out all the laughter, hollers, “STOP!”-s and other comments from her crewmates as they observed, equally impressed by her creation. She couldn’t look away from his face. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen it so full of awe.  
  
“Beth,” Chris said. It was the first word he’d spoken in several minutes. “You made this?”  
  
He knew it was a stupid question—a question to which he already knew the answer. But he just couldn’t get over it.  
  
She bit her lip and smiled, feeling heat on her skin from the way he was gaping at her. “Of course I did, loser.”  
  
“Dude, come on, play it!” came Martinez’s voice from behind them. The others voiced their agreement.  
  
Beth grinned when he pressed GO and guided him as he navigated his icon across the screen, chased by Santa and his sleigh. It was ridiculous, but it was perfect.  
  
He played a couple times to see what happened both when he lost (he got sucked into Santa’s toy bag) and when he won (he was adorned with a Santa hat and pulled onto a very rudimentary-looking Hermes).  
  
Finally, he turned back to Beth with a million different feelings spread across his face. “This is incredible,” he said, threading an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I cannot believe you made this for me.”  
  
“Ow ow!” hollered Martinez. “Bethy Jo’s gettin’ some tonight.”  
  
“Jesus,” Beth muttered, laughing despite herself, as the others rolled their eyes.  
  
In all the excitement, Beth, the only recipient left, almost forgot to open her own present. (When she saw the “Good for one Saturday morning of sleeping in” certificate from Lewis, she was really glad she hadn’t. Especially when Lewis said she could keep Chris in bed with her too.)  
  
There were more jokes and wisecracks as the others all took turns playing the game, which they’d collectively deemed the most impressive gift.  
  
At least an hour passed, but nothing wiped that that awed, smug look of amazement off Beck’s face. Beth didn’t mind one bit.  
  
\---  
  
Back in their room that night, Chris sat on the bed untying his shoes before looking up to Beth in question. “Wait, is that what you were doing up late all those nights this week? Making that game?”  
  
She smiled, kicking off her own shoes in the corner. “Yup. Making up reasons why I was still working got really difficult toward the end there.” She crossed over to the small dresser and pulled out some bundled clothes. “Last night you were staring directly at the backend while I was working on it, even though you had no idea what it was.”  
  
He chuckled, leaning back against the pillows and enjoying the view while Beth undressed and changed into her pajamas. She caught him checking her out and shot him a joking glare, which he returned with a smirk.  
  
“Just so you know, it’s taking all the self-restraint I have not to email every person I know right now and scream at them that my girlfriend is the coolest fucking person in the entire universe,” he said.  
  
Beth smiled and looked down to tie the drawstring on her sweatpants. She couldn’t help but feel a blush creeping up her neck. Because she knew he was serious.  
  
It was also the first time she ever heard him call her his girlfriend, and she was surprised by how much she liked the sound of it. Being his. Him being hers.  
  
She tossed her dirty clothes on the floor and made her way over to where he was reclined on the bed. “Well, I had to try and live up to what you gave me a few years ago.”  
  
He raised an eyebrow and smirked, thinking of the little action figures he’d given her. “Those dumb little things? I think you win, Beth.”  
  
“They weren’t dumb!” she protested, smiling as she smacked him lightly. “I love them. I had them on my nightstand for almost two years before I moved out and put everything in storage. You’ll see.”  
  
His face changed as Beth snuggled into his side, her nose tucked into his shoulder, oblivious to his expression.  
  
_You’ll see?_ He tried not to think too hard about the phrase she'd used. Tried to tell himself she probably didn’t mean anything by it. But he couldn’t ignore the thoughts that her words had stirred up: that he would see her things when they got home. That maybe she’d be adding her things to his things. That she thought about what their future together might look like too.  
  
They hadn’t talked at length about that yet. He figured they wouldn’t until they were a little closer to home with more of an end in sight. Still, though, it couldn’t hurt to let her know he thought about it too, right?  
  
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “I can’t wait to see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year! cheers to 2017 *clink clink*

**Author's Note:**

> Part II coming soon. In the meantime, in case you're new around here, the original Beck and Johanssen playing the dorky ass computer game fic lives [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6075297/chapters/13924203).
> 
> It's been a while, but I hope y'all are still out there.


End file.
